


Making It On Her Own

by burglebezzlement



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Al-Jamil family drama, Backstory, Burglary, Gen, Jail, Pre-Canon, Summer homes, The Hamptons, for totally understandable reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-15 15:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11233914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: When you get arrested in the Hamptons, you get arrested in real life.





	Making It On Her Own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



> Happy Every Woman! 
> 
> Hampton by the Sea and its sheriff's department are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real summer vacation destinations for international sophisticates and their police forces are purely coincidental.

Tahani hides behind her enormous sunglasses as she walks up the steps of the bus. Forced to ride the Hamptons Jitney, like some ordinary washerwoman? This is the lowest she’s had to sink. Anyone on this jitney could recognize her and tip off International Sophisticate Magazine. 

Perhaps she should organize a fundraiser. Something to aid the deserving poor, who might be temporarily unable to afford a helicopter from the city, or at the very least a car and driver. 

She mentally plans the gala as the bus lumbers out of Manhattan. Color scheme — lilac and peach, the shades of a Hamptons sunset, with accents of sea-green. Tahani’s dear friend Ina Garten could help with the menu. She’d keep it small and intimate. Just good friends who really understood the plight of those without helicopters and could afford a thousand pounds per plate.

She goes on planning the gala, distracting herself from the unpleasant scene of the morning.

It’s not Tahani’s fault that the front desk clerks have gotten so _unpleasantly_ insistent about her personal, private financial information. She’s Tahani Al-Jamil — do they really think she’s about to walk away from her bill at the Ritz? She was always going to pay. Eventually. She has at least three residual checks coming from walk-on celebrity guest spots on sitcoms, after all. 

Except apparently the front desk man found those payment terms unacceptable, so now she’s being forced to visit the Hamptons house.

Tahani’s mouth scowls before she remembers who she is. Where she is. If someone decides to tip off International Sophisticate Magazine, she absolutely must be beautiful in their pictures.

Perhaps she can write it off as some live-like-the-little-people project, she thinks. Like Gwyneth, the time she made her cook feed her on only thirty pounds per week or whatever it was.

Her heart buoyed by her new plan, she stares out into the endless taillights of the Long Island Expressway and begins planning her next gala.

* * *

The Al-Jamil summer house is surrounded by gardens, and Tahani stumbles into a rosebush and rips her skirt before she reaches the side door. She has to sort through three rings of keys to assorted summer cottages, boats, and safety-deposit boxes before she finds the correct key.

Inside, it takes her only two tries before she remembers the passcode to the security system. 

The air in the house is cool, and smells like nothing. Tahani’s heart aches, remembering the good times, when the house was filled with lights and colors and people, most of all people, and the smell of good food. Her parents let her plan their parties, once Kamilah was off at Oxford. The Hamptons were Tahani’s training ground, the place where her party-planning skills first blossomed into fruition.

And now the house sits empty.

Tahani doesn’t turn on the lights. She can’t bear the thought of raising her neighbors’ hopes. Of letting them think that Tahani Al-Jamil and her legendary parties have returned to the Hamptons. 

Instead, she turns on her cell phone’s torch app and slips up the stairs to her old bedroom. The wall safe is still there, hidden behind a minor Impressionist painting the Al-Jamils were willing to waste on the bedroom of their less-favorite child.

 _Please be here_ , Tahani thinks, as she enters the combination into the keypad. _Please be here, please be here._ She can’t be reduced to living in Paul Hollywood’s guest house. Not again.

The safe door swings open, and Tahani looks inside. She’s saved — there’s the velvety jewelry box holding the Sandringham emeralds, the parure that her parents gave her for her fifteenth birthday. That same year, they gave Kamilah a sapphire and diamond tiara, but then who’s keeping score? Certainly not Tahani.

She cleans the contents of the safe out into a spare Birkin bag from the closet. If she can find a discreet buyer, the money from selling the Sandringham emeralds should settle her bill at the Ritz and refresh her summer wardrobe in time for house party season. 

The lights are still off downstairs, which is why Tahani doesn’t see the sheriff until a torch is pointed directly into her eyes.

“Drop the bag.”

It’s a woman’s voice, American accent, confident. The sort of voice that knows it has a gun, and therefore you’re going to do exactly what it says.

Tahani drops the bag.

“Now raise your hands.”

“There must be some sort of misunderstanding,” Tahani says, as she raises her hands. The torch is still shining directly into her face. “This is my personal property, which I was collecting while I happened to be in the neighborhood. I have the keys!”

“Turn around,” the voice says. “You have the keys? Is this your house?”

It’s a complicated question. Tahani doesn’t say anything.

“That’s what I thought.” The voice goes on, listing rights, implacably.

When the torch finally drops, Tahani finds her hands being handcuffed behind herself. The woman — the sheriff, according to the crest on her car door— holds her head when she puts Tahani into the back seat. “Careful, now.”

Tahani’s left alone, behind wire mesh like a common criminal, sitting in a seat designed for handcuffs. The sheriff hasn’t even cracked a window, and the inside of the car smells faintly of vomit.

She watches as the lights in the house blaze on, one by one, against the blue and white flash of the lights on the roof of the sheriff’s car. 

Finally, the lights turn off, and the sheriff comes back out of the house and gets into the car.

“Your Uber driver called you in,” the sheriff says, conversationally. “Thought it was weird when the lights didn’t go on.”

“Where are you taking me?” Tahani asks.

“Not asking for a lawyer?” The sheriff smiles. “Good. I like that.”

* * *

The sheriff’s station is a low, concrete block building, tucked away on a side road where it won’t disturb the tourists and summer people, who dislike being reminded of civil force. 

There’s paperwork. Tahani sits in an uncomfortable metal chair, wrists handcuffed to a bar at the edge of the desk. She doesn’t cooperate, but they don’t need her to. The woman — the sheriff — finds everything easily enough, in Tahani’s purse. Tahani winces when the sheriff writes down her name. This is going to be all over the gossip blogs in the morning.

Once the paperwork is done, the sheriff hands Tahani over to some sort of jail-based front desk clerk, who prods Tahani through a series of humiliating inspections which Tahani can only assume are some form of jail hazing. 

The booking photo — Tahani’s always thought that people didn’t make enough of themselves in jail booking photos, but now she understands. Her hair is only just curling gently over her shoulders, and she fears that her smile doesn’t have its usual insouciance. She wonders, briefly, if she should be trying for pathos, a sort of poor-little-match-girl effect, but then the photographs are over. Only two chances to make an impression. It seems wildly unfair to the criminal classes.

At least they let her keep her clothing, minus the shoes. Orange has never been Tahani’s color.

The holding cell they bring her to is dark and cool. The only blanket is a wool blend, which seems dreadfully unfair. Polyester blends always make Tahani’s skin itch.

Tahani shivers, lying back on the thin mattress in her lightweight sundress, and waits for morning.

* * *

She wakes to the smell of coffee, and a cup being held through the bars.

It’s the woman from last night who’s holding it. The sheriff.

Tahani sits up slowly. Her hair must look a fright — she smooths it down. Tries to brush the wrinkles from her crumpled sundress.

“Come on,” the sheriff says. “Take it. Haven’t got all day here.”

The concrete floor is cold against Tahani’s bare feet. She tries not to think about how disgusting the floor is.

When she gets to the cell door, the sheriff swings it open and hands her the coffee. “Didn’t know how you took it,” she says. “It’s black.”

Tahani doesn’t normally drink drip-brewed coffee, but after a night in what may as well be a dungeon, her head feels muddled and unclear. She takes a sip. “Thank you.” She looks at the sheriff. “Are you being the good cop?”

The sheriff snorts. “Not usually. Come on, follow me.”

She shows Tahani into an interview room with a long window on the far wall. Tahani shivers in the chill from the air con.

“So why didn’t you tell us you owned the house?” the sheriff asks.

Tahani freezes, her cup halfway to her lips. “I beg your pardon?”

“I called your sister.” The sheriff leans back in her chair and takes a sip of her own coffee. “Kamilah. Lovely woman. We worked the security for her one-woman performance art piece and installation in town last year. I was going through a divorce at the time, and — well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how good your sister’s advice is. She gave me her personal cell number, said to call any time if I needed to talk.”

Tahani doesn’t say anything. Kamilah’s never given Tahani her personal cell number. She’s always said she likes to keep her cell number for just close friends and colleagues. Tahani had to go through Kamilah’s assistant the last time she wanted to talk to her sister. Which was before the reading of the will, thank you very much.

“I called her this morning,” the sheriff says, oblivious to Tahani’s inner turmoil. “Why didn’t you tell us it was your house?”

“It isn’t,” Tahani says, before she can stop herself. Before she remembers that she’s in jail, and she may be staying here if she — but it isn’t her house. “I didn’t take anything my parents left to Tahini.”

“Tahini?” The sheriff looks confused. “Like the sauce?”

“My parents mis-spelled my name in their will,” Tahani says, frostily. “If they intended to leave property to their second-favorite daughter, they should have spelled her name correctly.”

The sheriff takes another sip of coffee. “That’s what Kamilah said you’d say.”

“Oh she did, did she?” Tahani’s furious. Of course. Everyone cares what Kamilah thinks about things. The international press. The art world. The people at International Sophisticate Magazine, even when they’re supposed to be writing a story about Tahani. 

And the Hampton by the Sea sheriff’s office, apparently. Tahani pushes her coffee away.

“We’re letting you go,” the sheriff says. She slides a piece of paper across the table. It’s the Hampton by the Sea assessor’s card for the Al-Jamil summer house. Tahani recognizes the tiny, grainy photograph in among all the numbers. “We checked out Kamilah’s story. The house went into a trust last year — TAJ trust. Tahani Al-Jamil. TAJ.”

“It’s still not my house,” Tahani says, too angry to think of lawyers’ bills and the fact that the Sandringham emeralds are her only current source of money. “I refused it. I refused all of it.”

“Looks like it’s still yours.” The sheriff shrugs. “You sure you want to refuse this kind of thing? It’s a lot of money. Your sister says you like raising money for charities. You could raise even more money if you had a house like this, couldn’t you? Throwing galas and events.”

Tahani doesn’t consider it. Not even for a moment. 

The emeralds — it’s not the same. The emeralds are hers, given to her in a time when her parents still kept up the pretense. One gift for Tahani; one for Kamilah. Kamilah’s sapphire-and-diamond tiara might have been wildly more expensive. Tahani knows full-well that the gift of a tiara meant her mother expected Kamilah to become a duchess or better. 

But at least Tahani’s name was spelled correctly on the tag. 

She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I’m going to do it on my own. I’ve got to.”

The sheriff studies her. “That’s what your sister said you’d say.”

“I’d like to be released or shown back to my cell now,” Tahani says.

The sheriff takes another sip of coffee and then gets up. “Come on. We’ll get you your shoes back.”

* * *

They give her her shoes, her Birkin bag of emeralds. Her freedom, when they show her to the door, and then Tahani’s left standing, rumpled and mussed in a torn sundress, in the early morning sun of a Hamptons summer morning.

People will be going to the farmer’s market soon. They could see her like this. It’s unacceptable. Tahani has to get out of here.

She gets her phone out of her handbag, to call for an Uber, and then stops to think.

It’s not her house. But the things in it — things her parents gave her before they died? 

Tahani knows someone, back in the city, who can give a good price for second-tier Impressionist paintings like the one her parents hung over her safe.

She changes the destination in her phone. She has one more gift to reclaim.


End file.
